3:AM Magazine

Penny Rimbaud (formerly of Crass) performs in London on 28 September. * On Eduardo Paolozzi. * How novice authors promote themselves on the web. * Tindal Street Press‘s short story masterclasses. * Electric Literature‘s video series. * Huw Nesbitt reviews Tao Lin‘s Shoplifting in American Apparel: “Ultimately all this is, is a critique without end or goal; an infinite insult aimed at the entire universe that affirms nothing but would happily send everything to hellfire. In some respects, to have achieved that with such brevity is something to be marvelled at. In others, it’s merely a truly terrifying statement”. Tao is interviewed on Dazed Digital * Douglas Coupland on how he came to write Generation X. * Richard Hawley‘s “incredible command of colourful Anglo-Saxon”. * Second issue of the Lomography Magazine. * The last days of Dash Snow. * I hate the Beatles. * Brigitte Bardot, “existentialist icon”. * 3:AM‘s Utahna Faith in Exquisite Corpse. * Jon Robb on how The Damned were airbrushed out of punk history: “Even covered in cream Brian [James] looks cool as fuck”. * Tom Bradley in fine form. * James Maker‘s new blog. * Ex-Blondie bassist Gary Lachman on the occult. * Here is the promo video for Joseph Ridgwell‘s Last Days of the Cross. There’s a review of the book right here. * On Kevin Cummins‘s iconic Manc photography: “Not all Cummins’s work is in Manchester. But it’s all located. ‘Sometimes the band was almost incidental,’ he admits. ‘Like the Joy Division shot. That’s an architectural shot with a band in it’.” On mighty Man City: “There’s an apocryphal tale that he refused to fly United Airlines. ‘I said it once as a joke,’ he protests. ‘It was for ‘My Sad Mate’, the back page of 90 Minutes, the football magazine. I’ve never lived it down. The next time I went to a match, this lad came up to me and said, Nice one. I didn’t know those wankers owned an airline”. Nice passage at the end of the article too: “It [the book] opens with a picture of a patriotic mural for the Queen’s Jubilee in 1977: ‘We were all going to punk gigs, but we were in our own little world,’ says Cummins. ‘Everyone else was painting royalist emblems on the side of their houses.’ This book shows the ripple effect of those gigs. Thirty-plus years later, the book ends with another union jack mural but this time someone has added the slogan, ‘There’s no future in England’s dreaming’. Followed by: ‘John Lydon of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here‘.” * The Impostume on Trainspotting as Blairite escapism: “the fantasy projection of the Poorist middle classes, representing a brief, invigorating holiday in transgression they can return from replete with all kinds of sub-cultural capital, the clothes, the drugs, the music, the bars, the terminology.” * Evie Wyld‘s brand spanking new site. * Lechers and lecturers. * Sam Jordison on James Palumbo‘s “emancipated” prose: “There is no fear of, say, mixed metaphors here. Palumbo is brave enough to write sentences such as: ‘It recounts without pity the bonfire of vanities that has become our daily grind,’ again and again. He isn’t worried, either, by repetition. If people in his world are ‘alive with pleasure’, he will just say so. Even if he has used the same phrase several times before in the space of a few pages. Cliche is no obstacle. If he wants to call something ‘a latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah’, he will. He is also bold enough to write sentences such as the following: ‘If at this moment the invisible voice transformed into a visible face, Tomas would note a quizzical look on its brow’. Can’t help giving you another killer extract: “Here’s a book with neither plot, point, intelligence, wit, originality nor elegance that has been forced down our throats thanks to the very things it purports to deride. Stephen Fry declares on the cover that it’s ‘absolutely amazing … it’s really remarkable!’ It can only be assumed that he is in on the sophisticated joke Palumbo has devised”.* Ben Myers signs with Picador. * Zines are back, again. * New issue of Wag’s Revue. * Ari Up of the Slits interviewed in the latest issue of Dazed & Confused. * Best literary tattoos.